Marked Secrets

3

Amelia

Nothing was the same after I became one of the marked. People looked at me differently. Every neighbor, my own family members, and it even felt like every passerby knew of my new citizen status.

As I sat in my own bedroom, I just stared at the cream colored walls as if they were going to give me some sort of answer. I never imagined myself being marked. I thought that was for the people who were locked up ten, maybe even fifteen times. It never even crossed my mind that all of the girls I spent my time with at the jail were marked as well. Some of them were as young as thirteen.

Imagine being informed at thirteen years old that you will never have a boyfriend, a marriage, or any children because you just so happened to have a mental illness. It was all a load of bullshit, and I was stuck being marked. I was stuck until I found a way to get unstuck. There was no telling how long that would take, but things were going to have to change in Moonstone Province, and I could not make change happen alone.

Picking up my phone, I decided to call Blake. Part of me was scared I'd be bothering him, because that's what it's like living with depression. You always felt like a burden, like you were inconveniencing someone else, even if you were doing something for yourself. I tried to remind myself that I'd been locked up for a month straight, and he'd probably want to talk.

"Amelia!" Blake yelled into the phone the minute he picked up, and I was forced to draw the phone away from my ear. "They freed ya, holy shit!"

"They did," I said into the receiver, blinking softly. I bit my lip, deciding that over the phone probably was not the best way to break the news to him that I was at marked status.

"We have to catch up, I'll be over in five!"

"Blake-" I began, but was cut off by the call beeping out. He was usually full of energy, so it wasn't a surprise to me that he was excited about me being home.

What was the point of being home if I could not live at I pleased? I didn't choose to be depressed. If I had the choice, don't they think I would have chosen the opposite? Moonstone made no sense, and the fact that everyone just put up with it was disheartening.

Walking over to my full length mirror, I threw on a leather jacket since it was the beginning of April and still in the fifties in Moonstone. I stared at myself long and hard in the mirror, wishing I was somebody else. Being Amelia Bridges was hard, and it wasn't the fair kind of hard. It was the hard that felt hopeless, and was not going to change.

I exited my room, finding my Father on the couch. Last night he cooked me my favorite dinner, chicken pot pie and it was spectacular. He was happy to have me home, and he was always much more understanding of me than my Mother. Though he still abided by Moonstone's policies, he loved me more, it almost felt like.

"Hey, Amel," My Father hummed. "Where are you off to?"

"I'm gonna meet Blake outside, we're going for a walk to catch up," I explained, hugging my jacket closer to my thin body.

"Okay, honey. Don't stay out too late, alright?"

"Alright," I whispered, slipping out the front door before he could ask me anymore questions.

They liked Blake, they really did. The only thing that could stop them from approving of him would be if they found out he was the one who introduced me to the concept of mental illness. It was fucked up that Moonstone never taught things like that to their people, and treated mental illness like it was some figment of everyone's imagination. They had to have known it would come out at some point. People know people who know people, and they always find out things.